The Lockwood Concern (7 page)

just to gossip about your father. It's to try to make you understand some people. You're going away, a long distance. Strange people. Don't be surprised if you can't understand the actions of some people. And never be surprised at anything your father, does. He lives entirely in his mind. A very sad man, to have missed so much in life." "I guess I'll understand this later." "Don't try now. Wait till you come across somebody you don't understand, then remember what I've told you. There are some women who are that way, too. It isn't confined to men." "Were you ever in love with anybody?" "Your father. Six years. Then I found out what kind of man he was and I stopped loving him. By that time I had you and Ernestine to love, so I didn't really miss loving your father. I want you to go to California full of hope, but prepared. People can disappoint you. Someone you love can disappoint you. If that happens, remember that I lived for fifteen years with a man that I'd stopped loving, and nobody ever knew I was unhappy. Most of the time I wasn't unhappy. Only when I thought back on the six years that I was in love. You never thought of me as an unhappy person, did you?" "No. But I did use to wonder how you could be happy with Father. I guess that's as close as I ever came to thinking you were unhappy." "I'm glad you didn't come any closer. Children should believe in their parents' happiness. But now you're older, about to go it alone, so I don't mind disillusioning you a little bit." "I haven't as many illusions as you might think. Especially now. I have none about myself. I thought I was honest, till last year. Then I discovered that I wasn't." "You were, and you still are. But you may be weak, in some things. Most of us are. Haven't you ever read about men who led quiet, respectable lives, and then one day they can't resist temptation? They take all the money out of the cash drawer and run away? Well, you're twenty-two instead of forty-five. And of course what you did has harmed no one but yourself. No real harm will come to anybody else because you were asked to leave Princeton. Your father talks about the disgrace, but he's made such a practice of staying aloof from people that they don't know much about us. He's not going to say anything now, to the people in Swedish Haven, but he never has, so there's nothing very different about that. If he'd been a more friendly, convivial man, his silence now would be noticeable. As it is, there won't be anybody outside this family that knows why you left Princeton." "Yes there will." "I'm talking about Swedish Haven." "I'll never be able to go back to Princeton, or face my Princeton friends." "Who came to say goodbye to you when you left?" "Oh, four or five fellows." "Then remember them and forget about the others. Those four or five will defend you, and the others don't matter." She sighed. "Nobody matters." "Are you getting tired?" "Yes I am, a little. I think there must be something else wrong with me besides just my heart. Not that my heart isn't enough. What a nuisance it is, being an invalid." "I'll let you sleep." "All right. Come in before you go to bed, I'm usually reading. I'm reading a book about a woman that got a new start in life, but her story isn't at all like yours. She goes away with a man, and comes back home without marrying him. Before she goes away she was like Cinderella, the ugly duckling, but my! what an illicit romance does for her self-confidence. It was written by a woman, but I don't believe a word of it. And that Princeton book they're all talking about. Don't they ever study there?" "As little as possible. That's why some of us have to cheat in exams." "Oh, Georgie - well, it's on your mind." He saw from the second-story landing that his luggage had been taken to his room. He went downstairs and noticed that only one place was set at the dining room table. "Hello, May. Hello, Margaret," he said, in the kitchen. "Is the table set for me or for my father?" "Welcome home," said May. "It's set for you. Your father's having his dinner at the Gibbsville Club. He has some meeting he has to go to, and he couldn't wait." "All right. I'm ready any time you are," he said. "Oh, is Henry around?" "He has the day off." "I thought I saw his light on." "He's in his room, but it's his day off," said May. "Is that so?" said Bing Lockwood. He went to the wall telephone and pushed the garage button. "Henry, this is George." "George who?" "George Bingham Lockwood Junior." "It's my day off." "I won't be bothering you very often after tomorrow. My trunk is coming from Princeton, New Jersey. I want it readdressed to me, care of - write this down now, please - care of Jack King, Rancho San Marcos, San Luis Obispo County, California." "You're going too fast for me. All that Spanish." George gave him the address more slowly. "Have you got it now?" "Care of Jack King, Rancho San Marcos. San Luis Obispo County. California. You don't want me to bring the trunk home. Just readdress it and have it put on the next train. Who's going to pay for this?" "I'm sure my father will be glad to pay for it." "Don't you know some way you could put it on your ticket?" "I haven't bought my ticket." "Well, buy it, and tell Ike Wehner to readdress the trunk. That would simplify matters. And save a lot of money. If you knew you were going all the way to California, why didn't you have the trunk sent from Princeton, instead of this roundabout way?" "I wasn't sure I was going to California. Now I am." He hung up. "You going all the way to California?" said May. "All the way." "What happened? Did you get in some kind of trouble at the college?" said Margaret. "I sure did. I cheated in my exams." "Aw, now, tell us the truth. What did you do?" "I told you. I cheated in my exams." "All right, if you don't want to tell us. Did you get in trouble over a girl?" "Liquor, more likely," said May. "Why more likely liquor?" said George. "Because they don't take girls at your college," said May. "There's the other kind, that always hang around where the young fellows congregate," said Margaret. "Anyway, we're not gonna get it out of him what it was, women or booze." "Or maybe both. My nephew is attending the Penn State, and those frats. The things that go on there you'd never believe. The Princeton frats would be worse." "Why?" said George. "A wealthier class of boys go there and they have more money. They're much worse." "No, only during one week," said George. "One week?" said Margaret. "Yes. Once a year they have a custom at Princeton called Orgy Week, and you're allowed to have as many women as you like in your room." "Staying there?" said Margaret. "Of course. Anything is allowed during Orgy Week, except to have a professor's wife in your room. If you're caught with a professor's wife you have to translate fifty lines of Horace." "I don't believe it," said Margaret. "I don't know whether I believe it or not," said May. "Ask my father. Ask him sometime if he ever had to translate fifty lines of Horace." "Fifty lines of horrors? What does that mean?" "It probably means you have to write down fifty lines of horrible things," said May. "Well, I knew that," said Margaret. "Fifty lines of horrors, what else could it mean? But is there some book that has all these horrors in it?" "I'll send you a copy." "Not to me. I don't want the postman knowing I got such a book," said Margaret. "I have an old one upstairs," said George. "I never saw it," said May. "Did your father get caught with a professor's wife?" "Just watch his face when you ask him." "I might get fired," said May. "You might at that. Princeton men aren't supposed to talk about Orgy Week, not to outsiders." "When is this week?" "When is it? It varies from year to year. Sometimes in the fall, sometimes in the spring. The student council decides. You get an announcement that Orgy Week is going to start on such-and-such a day. Most of the professors' wives leave town, just to be on the safe side. But there are always a few of them that stay." "The young ones, I guess. The pretty ones," said May. "Mostly the young and pretty ones," said George. "But I wouldn't have anything to do with a professor's wife. Fifty lines of Horace - not worth it." "You'd be better off if you stayed away from women entirely," said Margaret. "He's old enough. Twenty-two," said May. "I don't care how old he is or how young he is. Look at the trouble he's in already, going to California." "What's the name of this week you're talking about?" said May. "Orgy Week. It was named after John W. Orgy, he was the professor of pederasty at Princeton in 1865 and he started the whole thing. Professor John W. Orgy. Easy name to remember. There's a statue of him in Nassau Hall." "Huh. I don't swolly it," said Margaret. "I suppose John W. Orgy wasn't professor of pederasty,' said George. "I suppose there's no statue of him in Nassau Hall?" "Well, maybe he was a famous professor of that thing, but don't try to make me believe a professor would start a thing like that," said Margaret. "Not an ordinary professor, maybe, but a professor of pederasty would. I don't think you know what pederasty is, Margaret." "I heard of it. It's some kind of a medical subject. The bones in the human body," said Margaret. "See, you don't know. You've got it confused with orthopederasty. The two aren't the same at all." "Well they sound almost the same," said Margaret. "That's just the trouble. What are homiletics, for instance?" "Why, I know what they are but I'd rather not say. Like Artie Minzer?" "Well, there you are. You did know about homiletics. But not about John W. Orgy, the professor of pederasty. His subject. He believed in absolute freedom of the individual, and he conducted this experiment of allowing complete freedom for one week. It's been going on for half a century." "Well, it didn't do you any good," said Margaret. "It's too soon to tell," he said. On his last night in the house where he was born, George Bingham Lockwood Junior dined alone on a meal that he had not ordered and would not have chosen. His mother was asleep when he went to her room, and he telephoned three girls in Gibbsville, but they all seemed to be at a bridge party and were not expected home much before eleven-thirty or twelve. He unpacked and repacked his kitbag, took a bath, and fell asleep while reading in bed. He did not hear his father come in; he did not hear his mother when she came to his room, opened the windows, and turned out his light. He was awake at six o'clock. He shaved and dressed and had a last breakfast in the kitchen, with Margaret urging more food on him. After breakfast he went to his mother's room, knocked, and entered. "You're making the eight-forty-six?" she said. "Yes. Thanks for opening my windows. You did it, didn't you?" "You were sleeping so soundly. You needed that sleep. Write to me on the train. You go by way of Chicago, I suppose, but I guess you wouldn't want to look up any friends of ours." "No, I don't think so. "You can make a list of things you'll want us to do. I'll have your fur coat put in storage. You won't need that for a while. And when your trunk comes I'll have Henry-?' "I've done that." "Send me a telegram when you get to California, and write me when you're settled. I want to know everything. Do you need any money?" "No thanks." "Well, if you ever do." "I know. I'm traveling very light, because when I get there all I'll have to have will be work clothes. Blue jeans." "Blue jeans?" "They're like overalls, without the bib. They call them Levis out there. A store in San Francisco owned by a man named Levi. I got all this from Steve." "Is Steve's mother living where you're going? On the ranch?" "I believe so, yes. But don't write to her, Mother. Not until I've been there a while and there's some occasion for it. I'll give you the address now, but you understand why I don't want you to write Mrs. King." "Of course. I'll say goodbye to Ernestine for you." "Do that, yes. Well, I think I hear Henry." "Yes. Well, I guess there's nothing more." "No, and I'm not the one they hold the train for. Take good care of yourself and I'll write to you and you write to me." She looked at him appraisingly. "This is all for the best. I know it is. You're not leaving anything that you'll really need. My love goes with you and stays with you. You know that, my boy." "Yes, Mother. I know that." He leaned down and kissed her and just once she stroked the top of his head. "Hurry, and God bless you." He barely caught the train, and he was on his way. In his mother's room his father was standing at the window. He was fully dressed. Presently she came out of her bathroom and got back into bed. "Good morning, Agnes," he said. "Good morning," she said. "He's gone." "Yes, he's gone, and I'll never see him again." "That isn't necessarily true." "It's as true as anything you ever knew," she said. "As true as the fact that I'll never forgive you for last night." "Agnes, listen to me, please. There are two sides to this, and be fair." "No, there aren't two sides to it, and there's no question of fairness, George. This was the one time in your life when you didn't have to think-think-think. And what good has your thinking done? You made it impossible for my son to stay another night in this house. I might have been able to do something for him if you'd gone away for a week or a month. But whatever you said to him, you made it impossible. If you didn't want to be nice to him, at least you could have gone away while I tried to make him feel less like a leper." "He said in so many words that he wished I would die." "What did you say to provoke him? Don't tell me. I don't want to know." "I'm very strongly tempted to tell you." "Well, don't." "You're taking advantage of your illness." "What advantage? What advantage have I got to take? I know what's going to happen to me. I know how long I've got, a year at the most. What if you shorten that by a few months? What can you possibly say that would be as bad as what you did last night? You mean that you could say something that would give me another attack? And you're not saying it because you don't want to take advantage of my illness? What a hypocrite you are, George Lockwood. Really and truly." "Thank You." "I've learned something about you. Too late, but at least I'll die knowing it. You pretend not to care what people think about you, but in fact you care more than anyone else in the world. You're not a snob, you're not an aristocrat. You're nothing more than a cowardly person that doesn't want anything known about him, good or bad. So afraid that if the good became known, the bad would too. That's all it is." "Oh, there is some good about me?" "Why yes. I even told your son that you were generous, considerate, gentle." "I'm sure that fell on hard ground." "I didn't do it for you. I did it for him. He has your blood, and the boy is going to wonder about himself, these next few